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by Anna Raccoon on March 18, 2013

Remember when the Guardian first started making allegations that the News of the World had hacked Millie Dowler’s phone and deleted messages? Remember how it soon became ’murdered Millie’s’ phone, just in case we had missed the point that this was a heartless technological triumph carried out by sinister black hats employed by the blackest hat of them all – Rupert Murdoch?

Since this story was published new evidence – as reported in the Guardian of 10 December – has led the Metropolitan police to believe that this was unlikely to have been correct…

But not before they had published a grand total of 37 stories that were based on that lie.

Thus was launched an entire industry of ‘we wuz hacked’ legal cases. The ‘Hacked off’ campaign group originated from those stories. Ironical given that ‘Hacked Off’s’ entire raison d’etre is to ensure that in future when newspapers or any other news publisher gets it wrong they will be subject to draconian penalties. An entire campaign to punish publishers for untruths, based on the publication of an untruth. You couldn’t make it up.

The very word ‘hacked’ was a misnomer, there was no computing alchemy; merely a journalist discovering a new source of information – no different to learning how to navigate Facebook and download that teenage photograph of a youthfull politician throwing up into a policeman’s hat. The teenage person who put that photograph up so many years before had not meant it for public consumption – he had forgotten to protect the privacy of his private photographs. The ‘hacked ones’ had done the same – forgotten to protect their privacy. That which they thought was private was actually wide open to anyone to whom the original journalist had passed the magic key to – ‘This is how you do it’.

1-2-3-4, enter the code and open the door…

The ‘Hacked Off’ campaign, with Millie Dowler as their iconic poster child was wholeheartedly supported by every journalist whose own newspaper was not then implicated. They loved the allegations – a series of statements from keyword friendly names generating hits on their on line papers as they made allegations about their competitors. Those who knew that the supposed ‘hacking’ was actually the fault of the ‘victims’ for not protecting their privacy said nothing. They didn’t chose to explain to their readers what hacking actually was, nor to point out that the allegations were as yet unproven. Yep, plenty of arrests, but not one case proven in court so far.

It has its similarities with the Savile fiasco, where another poster child has enabled them to write column after column naming keyword friendly names as they enjoy bashing the BBC – those who know that there are serious doubts about the veracity of the claims are saying nothing, they don’t chose to explain to their readers that child abuse does not automatically mean young children and force, that you are a child for the purposes of the Act up to aged 18, nor do they point out to their readers that the disgraceful ’Giving Victims a Voice’ is a collection of unproven allegations. Yep, plenty of arrests, but not one case proven in court so far.

Yet the journalists, who are and were fully aware of the doubts regarding both campaigns, are today howling to anyone who might be listening, that the freedom of the press to fearlessly speak the unfettered truth, is about to be curtailed for the first time in 300 years.

What have they done with that freedom over the past 300 years? Why did we have to wait until a disgruntled civil servant sold the MPs expenses CDs to The Daily Telegraph to learn that MPs were making a mockery of their expenses? What was the political lobby doing ‘fearlessly speaking unfettered truth’ to us for 300 years? – or were they too busy hoovering up expensive lunches and staying on the right side of politicians. Just who is their loyalty to, now that they beg our support for that ‘free speech’?

We in the blogosphere understand only too well that we don’t actually ‘buy news’ from them. We buy the paper it is printed on and the distribution costs at our newsagent. It is advertisers who pay the journalist wages. That is where their loyalty lies; to the advertising rate card. More hits, higher advertising rates. The news schedule is not dominated by any loyalty to us, we purchasers of newsprint and distribution costs. The early edition goes out, and the next day’s front pages are culled from those stories that get the most hits. Whether the Editor thinks that the British public has got more right to know that the Duke of Cambridge would prefer to have a son, or Cliff Richards has taken a plane out of the country, or another three fine young men have been killed in a war that the journalists could tell us a lot more about if they chose, is not an issue.

It is which story gets the most keyword hits that dictates the front page; that dominates our collective consciousness.

Lately they have been fixated on Savile; they seem to believe that we will fall for the line that ‘this’ is the sort of expose that will be disallowed under the new press regulations; that somehow our children are being protected by them. Fiddlesticks; cobblers. Males, stranger males at that, account for less than 10% of all child abuse. Celebrity males, if the allegations are even remotely true, a minuscule proportion of that. Where has been the interest of the great British press in the ordinary, everyday abuse suffered by children in a thousand households from Fathers and ‘Uncles’. More to the point, where has been the interest or even publicity of the abuse inflicted by women on children? It has been an unspoken area – yet I do not believe that journalists are unaware of it. Their new found interest in child abuse is cynical; an attempt to get the public behind letting them avoid the regulation that the celebrity hangers on of Hacked Off are keen to see in place.

That regulation will affect all of us – the blogosphere in particular. Aye, and Facebook too. Those of us who would tell the truth will be subject to the same draconian regulations that those who only tell half truths when they see it affecting their advertising income will be subject to. It won’t make a lot of difference to the newspapers; libel law will remain the same for the time being, their army of lawyers will continue to scrutinise every word before it goes out. Libel law affects bloggers too.

The Freedom of Information Act is available to bloggers and newspapers alike – there is nothing special about newspapers acquiring information in that way.

What is different is that in future the expense of compliance, the lawyers to check every word first, the sheer bureaucracy involved, will apply to those who start campaigns on Facebook, on Twitter, and in every free blog.

There’s a thing – the new regulations won’t make much difference to newspapers, but it will silence a lot of bloggers. Cynical? Moi?

{80 comments }

rabbitawayMarch 21, 2013 at 11:20

Kinda off topic – I see Jim Davison’s been re arrested Yewtree strikes again …..!

RobertMarch 20, 2013 at 13:43

IIRC, Murdoch was worried about the effect of the bad publicity on his US business interests.

miss mildredMarch 19, 2013 at 14:03

Ho Hum. MM just felt the pull out was done in unseemly haste that is all. Leading to sudden job losses and dismayed newsagents. Allegations not proven at that point. Later investigations seem to tell us the allegations were not correct . We all know what came later. The fast dispersal of unproven allegations worldwide/country wide, is surely what this blog is all about. The grim side of the internet is not easy to control.

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 21:23

The worrying thing, then, surely, is that someone, for some reason, did seem to feel the need to close it? Non? After all, no-one does that merely on a whim, do they?

Rupert Murdoch did. He was totally focussed on his redhead and perhaps his son at the the time. It was a wild gesture that proved to be meaningless anyway – on both sides – as he later launched the Sun in Sunday. It closed down within the space of one week. I cannot see it anything other than a whim, or a slight panic, which is much the same thing.

Ho HumMarch 20, 2013 at 01:05

I’ll try to remember just how whimsical it all is, then, when whichever rag he owns next jumps up to create the latest moral panic to terrify the fools and bairns, or castigates some villainous public sector organisation for taking decisions that are almost as bad as that one.

One danger of believing in “elites” is that we end up thinking these fellows are not just other human beings with big pots of money. Murdoch was plainly completely out of touch with what his son had apparently been condoning for years, obsessed with his surrogate daughter, and so rich that shutting down the most popular newspaper in Great Britain was petty cash to him and the employment of all those staff of less importance than the reputation of those personally important to him. The fact that he did all this on the basis of something that wasn’t even true is just deliciously hilarious. Orson Welles would have made a great film out of it, rather than a scandal.

‘A long established newspaper being taken out by its proprietor on a spurious phone hacking allegation, not properly investigated.’

Really? It was all one big mistake? That’s surely not the publication from the same newspaper group which, apparently, has since seemingly been running around providing the authorities with the names of current and former staff in some of its titles, with the details of the ‘wrongdoings’ committed while they were its employees? Sounds almost like a throwback to the Stalinist, or McCarthy eras (not much to choose between them at points), doesn’t it? Why do I feel that the costs involved in keeping one’s face clean before the public, and trying to minimise any really, really, serious contact between effluent with fan, seem to be merely incidental in achieving that aim?

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 11:36

BTW, that was a reply to miss mildred

miss mildredMarch 19, 2013 at 10:42

So much to make one very uneasy these days. The Telegraph starting off a story that has since been said to be, possibly, be incorrect. A mainstream newspaper accepting a CD that has made ALL politicians distrusted. A long established newspaper being taken out by its proprietor on a spurious phone hacking allegation, not properly investigated. A huge sum of money awarded to supposed victims. Sometime ago I said to a senior person where I worked as a volunteer, that I thought that our rapidly developing technology was outsmarting many persons and they were becoming misusers. The reason I said this was that our data storing computer programme was constantly being ‘upgraded’ remotely and constantly crashing. Like we were being taken over by an empire building alien, interfering, from a distance, with our work. I recently read a biography of Mountbatten, supported by his family, it told of his abilities and his faults, examined his marriage, his family relationships, his mistakes, his triumphs. Looked at his navy carreer. It praised him and critiqued him in equal measure. It used interviews and looked at stored records and family papers, film, photographs. Now we get instant knee jerk stuff pushed at us. Posting of lies and bullying and ignorant opinions flung around. The bad side of the internet and smart mobiles is like a nasty abscess waiting to burst and spray us with gunge. Now it needs a dressing. Whether it will heal or not is anyone’s guess. Maybe it will limp along like Henry V111′s leg, smelly, debilitating and chronically unable to be fully used to the inventors vision.

The problem is because they have control today over the internet everything will be done by the back door.ExampleIf you are deemed to be in breech of said garbage they will play around in the backroom of your internet, this could be in slowing down your connection and allowing the hacking of your browsers.The hack will allow a hack.

I have to uninstall my browsers often and re-install a new version, this suffices until they get back in.Its a good feeling to know those sanctioned to harass your internet experience have to hack it all over again.

ivanMarch 19, 2013 at 19:55

belinus, what are you blathering about? If you don’t know how to secure your equipment then you shouldn’t be using it.

Perhaps some of the angst may be misplaced (or, at least, premature)?“Downing Street sought to reassure small-scale web-based news providers and blogs that they would not be required to co-operate with the new regulatory system. No 10 said bloggers, tweeters, news aggregators and social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter, as well as special interest titles, would be excluded, but there was concern that a workable definition of these would be difficult to come up with.”

What Ho Hum said ^^^^^It’s easy to get carried away with hacking side if ut. Leveson was about much more.

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 01:20

I just don’t get why people have such a problem with the press being brought into the modern world, with professional standards which enable them to be free to print, in the public interest, the truth about people and events that really matter, whilst taking some care to avoid what is all too often the

which they churn out for the titillation of the masses, without giving as much as an aerial act of copulation as to whether or not it

is even contrary to their own current ethical standards, orwill be uncritically imbibed by the credulous to the detriment of the private personal lives of those about whom it was written, too many of whom are not public figures, but will be publicly pilloried for no good reason whatsoever.

The thinking of anyone who thinks that the latter sort of neanderthal behaviour is good, or wants it to support its sustainability, insofar as they are convinced that it’s good that we have to have that, and to have to put up with it (presumably as long as it’s not them in the firing line?), as a prerequisite to having the freedom to do the more reputable stuff too, is beyond me

We just wouldn’t sit back and supinely accept that sort of lack of control of personal behaviour from anyone else – it all starts from the individuals involved, nor then tell them to carry on and do it again because it’s good for us

I have concurred in the past with what you have written but sadly on this one occasion I muststrongly disagree with you.

Although this proposed legislation will prevent ugly sights of journalists chasing celebs et al., itwill also bring in, under the radar, political control by the great and the good, most of whom will beex quangocrats, staff from taxpayer-funded special interest groups and such. Many of these willbe practising or ex-marxists, like Sir David Nicholson, ex-communist chief of the NHS, or Sir DavidBell, lefty head of Pearsons and also on the Leveson committee, Dame Suzi Leather of the CharityCommission, or, .. trust me, the list is very long.

Also, how many people from the Hacked Off group or their chums will be appointed to the board?Do you really want attention-seeking Hugh Grant deciding what articles you can read?

Do you really, really believe that a press regulatory board staffed by such people will makebalanced, objective decisions?

Do you suppose that the Harriet Harman clone, who will almost certainly be appointed to thisboard, will strive to protect an article praising UKIP from the complaints made by a feminist, pro-EU, pro-public spending think tank?

I suspect we will also get a Gordon Brown clone on this board and I am certain that such a personwill ban any press article that points out the failings of mass immigration on the grounds that it is“bigoted” and will destabilise society.

We heard the same squeals of praise about the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act whenBlunkett was strengthening it in the early 2000s. We were assured then, by the same great and thegood who support Leveson, that our privacy was sacrosanct and safe. We were told that thissnoopers charter would only target bona fide terrorists and drug lords.

What happened in reality? The lowly but freedom-hating civil servants in local councils (repeat,local council workers, NOT officers from MI5, NOT policemen from the anti terrorism branch, butsome bovine under-trained, overpaid council worker) these kind of people totally abused the R.I.P.act to spy on families because of suspected incorrect school applications or dog fouling.

I’m sorry, but you really must look at the wider picture and measure our public “servants,” noton your high, but unproven, hopes but on the empirical evidence of their past and currentbehaviour.

Do you think this new press regulatory board would allow the following stories to be published, ifthe protagonists got Hacked Off to lodge a complaint on their behalf?

– The Telegraph’s expose of MPs’ expenses?– Richard Pendlebury’s articles last November about the left wing dominance of Leveson and thepublic sector in general?– Exposure of Chris Huhne?– Stories about Dennis McShane’s fraudulent invoices?– James Delingpole’s passionate writings about the fraud at the heart of the climategate emails?– Christopher Booker writing about the corruption and malpractice in the EU?– Our own dear Anna Raccoon writing about more of Vera Baird’s awful behaviour?– You, writing a disparaging remark about a lefty politician on this web site?– Me, writing about how I despise the professional politicians living apart from us normals in theirbubble of hypocrisy and privilege?

Free speech in this country is about to be killed.

As the saying goes “Be careful for what you wish for, for it just might happen.”

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 11:21

I would agree that there are occasions where the tin foil hat merchants who were laughed at in their predictions turned out to be right, especially on RIPA and the anti-Terrorist legislation. But mainly those were problems with the pro-active use of the legislation involved on a secret basis, where people had to then track down what was being done on the quiet, or by the thicker sort of jobsworth. That’s quite different from the type of publicly performed retrospective review of something that had already been written, or done in the course of preparing it, which this would entail.

OK, it might make people more careful about what they print and some of the things they do in getting the information. I’m not sure if you are saying that you are one of the people who thinks that a bad thing. If not, just how do you propose to instill some order on the loutish behaviour of the press and what they can do in trashing the most ordinary of people, or the more well known, in respect of things that if they pertained to either you or me, we would consider them to be private matters that the government, our neighbours, and rest of the world in general has no real business in knowing about, interfering in or being titillated by?

Let me be clear, I’m not at all talking about the heavyweight stuff which should rightly get out into the public gaze, and I don’t see how any of this will be able to stop that – the libel laws are far more dangerous in that regard. This is about the interference with people’s private lives or the way in which people can be totally misportrayed either through the need to feed the paper’s demographic or, too often it seems, just sheer malice. The people who write that sort of stuff, from all sides of the political and social spectra, aren’t some dimwitted bunch of otherwise innocent scribes. They know damn well what they’re doing, and the damage it will cause. They’ve had years to sort themselves out to be decent members of society and they won’t

So, are you happy that they just carry on as is? If not, what do you propose that’s better?

I am answering your point. However I notice you haven’t answered any of mypoints above about the harm this new legislation will have on free speech.

Anyway, my reply to you:

Yes I am happy for print journalism to carry on as it is, because:

– All of the genuinely aggrieved parties have received justice, recompense or both.

– Existing legislation has imprisoned the journalists who behaved badly. We do not need new laws. We need the existing laws to be enforced properly.

– Posturing, fake victims like Hugh Grant and John Prescott habitually enjoy being in the public eye by performing acts of varying degrees of atrociousness. In short they are publicity seekers and, in a world of trash TV, earn a lot of money from repeat appearances in the media. They do NOT need our assistance. We do NOT want state censorship implemented because of people like this.

– Back in the early 2000s, genuine lovers of liberty including myself feared what the R.I.P. act would allow anonymous civil servants to do. And we were proved right. These civil servants performed many acts of state snooping on modest, harmless indivuduals for the great terror crimes of allegedly fibbing on a school application form or dog fouling.

Today, we have the same justified concerns about how this proposed press regulation will be enforced.

To understand how lobotomised, bland, biased and controlled journalism willbecome under state regulation, read Martin Durkin’s account of his experiencewith an OFCOM controlled broadcast industry. It has led to left wingsentiments taking precedence and the refusal of many broadcasters to touchanything that challenges this “consensus”.“If you want to know what an ‘Ofcom for the press’ will do, ask me.”

To all supporters of this Leveson legislation, please address these points:

Do you want unelected, golden-pensioned, appointees-by-nepotism, preservers-of the statism status quo, career quangocrats and their oligarch and luvvyfriends in Hacked Off to control our journalists?

Are you happy that the members of Club Despot, like Bashar al-Assad, RobertMugabe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Un, will welcome Britain into theirbrotherhood with open arms because we have as much censorship by acontrolling unelected elite as they do themselves?

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 21:20

Responses interspersed.

‘To: Ho Hum

I am answering your point. However I notice you haven’t answered any of mypoints above about the harm this new legislation will have on free speech.

Anyway, my reply to you:

Yes I am happy for print journalism to carry on as it is, because:

– All of the genuinely aggrieved parties have received justice,recompense or both.’

‘ – Posturing, fake victims like Hugh Grant and John Prescott habituallyenjoy being in the public eye by performing acts of varying degrees ofatrociousness. In short they are publicity seekers and, in a world oftrash TV, earn a lot of money from repeat appearances in the media. Theydo NOT need our assistance. We do NOT want state censorship implementedbecause of people like this.’

‘email– Back in the early 2000s, genuine lovers of liberty including myselffeared what the R.I.P. act would allow anonymous civil servants to do.And we were proved right. These civil servants performed many acts ofstate snooping on modest, harmless indivuduals for the great terror crimesof allegedly fibbing on a school application form or dog fouling.’

Agreed. The law of unintended consequences. But we’re all responsible, as dross like this is normally the best you can expect when you put a cross against the name of any of the turds that volunteer to go to Westminster on our behalf, who then uncritically swallow the Home Office line or buckle under the party whips

Today, we have the same justified concerns about how this proposed pressregulation will be enforced.

‘To understand how lobotomised, bland, biased and controlled journalism willbecome under state regulation, read Martin Durkin’s account of his experiencewith an OFCOM controlled broadcast industry. It has led to left wingsentiments taking precedence and the refusal of many broadcasters to touchanything that challenges this “consensus”.“If you want to know what an ‘Ofcom for the press’ will do, ask me.” ‘

Read that. So what’s new? If the last 13 years of government had been right wing, the leftists would have been saying the same thing about the a right wing dominated Ofcom, anxious to serve its political masters

‘To all supporters of this Leveson legislation, please address these points:

Do you want unelected, golden-pensioned, appointees-by-nepotism, preservers-of the statism status quo, career quangocrats and their oligarch and luvvyfriends in Hacked Off to control our journalists? ‘

That’s maybe so, but the inference drawn as to what will happen ignores reality. You should be happy. In 10 years time, the Left will be complaining that the panel make up, as appointed by the Tories, is too cosy and friendly with the Press, and not doing anything substantive

‘Are you happy that the members of Club Despot, like Bashar al-Assad, RobertMugabe, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Un, will welcome Britain into theirbrotherhood with open arms because we have as much censorship by acontrolling unelected elite as they do themselves?’

Sorry, can’t say too much on that, as I’m not an expert on FOTL conspiracy stuff.

Look, I hate what purports to be the Labour Left with a passionate hatred that might frighten even you, but anyone who assumes that, just because I would like to see a bit of civility in the way our Press conducts itself, that consequently means that I support the scum who in the large part make up that particular bunch of arrogant, authoritarian, omnipotent moral busybodies is, frankly, out of their skull. Almost to the same extent that they might also then assume that my antipathy for that shower would make me any more inclined to support the loonies from the right of the political spectrum and the rest of their acolytes either

Hope that addresses your points

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 21:29

I have responded, but it appears that the content contains something that requires moderation…presumably some form of speech that is not free, even here

More than two links Ho Hum, that is the problem, it happens automatically – and if I’ve gone to bed, well, you are stuck in the slammer until I wake up again. Apologies.

Ho HumMarch 20, 2013 at 00:54

Thanks! I’ll remember to disguise any multiples in future

YvonneMarch 19, 2013 at 22:36

Why is it that alarm bells ring in my head when I see paragraphs and sentences starting “Let me be clear…….” and asking others to be “decent members of society”? Society is made up of all sorts of individuals and my decent may not be the same as your decent, and my ‘clear’ is not the same as your ‘clear’. Let me be clear (/sarc) I do not want to see hard won press freedoms eroded salami slice by salami slice, because this will only be the start and ‘hacking’ is the excuse. Yes, the Fourth Estate does not have much to be proud of of late but better that than the changes proposed.

Ho HumMarch 20, 2013 at 00:04

‘ Society is made up of all sorts of individuals and my decent may not be the same as your decent, and my ‘clear’ is not the same as your ‘clear’.’

Indeed. And I would be delighted if it remained so. I have no problems with accepting you as you are, whatever that may be.

However, when it comes to the Fourth Estate’s approach to treating you in a similar manner, unless things have changed dramatically since yesterday, on my last reading of, let’s take the Daily Mail as an example, it clearly doesn’t necessarily believe that

– your ‘decent’, or mine, or anyone else’s for that matter, should be allowed to be anything other than that which accords with that of those those it purports to represent,

– your freedom and mine should be only those which they think we should have, and

– its tolerance of you, me, anything or anyone else who happens to be different is close to non-existent, and it will stir up antipathy against anyone non compliant in the most lurid fashions imaginable.

They see it almost as as their mission to make life misery for those who are not ‘People Like Us’. You only need to look at its editor’s speech from a couple of years back to see that that is no exaggeration either.

You may be happy with, of course, with a press that behaves like that. You may feel that that is reasonable for them, as the product of one of their hard won freedoms, built up over the years, to exhibit raw prejudice, and manipulate their audience accordingly to foment it further.

I don’t. I hope that you are never in their firing line, because you will certainly find that however decent you may be, or perceive yourself to be, they will shred you and spit you out, irrespective of however innocent or guileless you may really be, if you are not to their taste or don’t suit their agenda

Ho HumMarch 18, 2013 at 23:53

‘Far from impeding the investigation and hiding material…

Are you serious? That lot working pro bono? Any idea what they really did?

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committe on the behaviour of News of the World journalists in 2002 called ‘the paper’s activities “indefensible”, “grotesque” “astonishing” and “brazen”, in a unanimously-agreed section.’

(And if that lot are unanimous in such condemnation, you do well to remember the old phrase that ‘it takes one to know one’….who better to be able to reach that conclusion?)

‘They added: “Impersonating members of a missing girl’s family; besieging an employment agency; falsely asserting co-operation with the police; falsely quoting the police; and, according to their own account, obtaining Milly Dowler’s mobile telephone number from her school friends are hardly the actions of a respectful and responsible news outlet. For those actions, and the culture which permitted them, the editor should accept responsibility.’

‘Now, about that £2m payout that they made to the family’ because they realised that what they had done needed wiped off the front page as soon as possible in a way that made the plebs think that they were true penitents and really just all good guys and dolls …….

JMMarch 19, 2013 at 00:18

Let me put it this way Ho Hum, if God forbid my daughter ever goes missing, I want a rabid pack of tabloid hacks on the case of tracking her down. I have confidence that they will do a darn sight better job than any police officer. They can even have her mobile phone number…

The Milly Dowler story was a perfectly defensible bit of journalism. I was proud to buy the 20 copies of the final News Of The World and would have continued to do so if Murdoch had retained the balls he had as a younger man.

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 01:46

I remember buying an early copy of the Sun…might have been the first edition, but I can’t be certain now. I never bought another. It was balls then, and not much has changed since.

ivanMarch 19, 2013 at 19:47

So Ho Hum, you would rater believe the outpourings of a group of lying, thieving, toughing politicians wit an axe to grind against the papers rather than using critical thought.

The politicians and ‘celebrities’ have blown this up into something they can use to cover their misdeeds when, in fact, everything was already there in law for them to get redress if the press were not telling the truth.

As it stands at the moment it does not matter if the politicians and celebs are caught with their hands in the till or up some woman’s skirt all they have to do is cry foul and the press and blogs are gagged. Is that what you want?

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 20:16

Didn’t you watch the witnesses, and hear what they said, at the Leveson Hearings? That’s far too simplistic

JMMarch 18, 2013 at 23:32

I have very little sympathy for anyone claiming to be “hacked” (which is, as Anna points out a misnomer of a term) and the idea that a bunch of celebs are claiming money in damages for being too stupid to set a password on their phone rather sticks in the craw. If I leave my front door open and unlocked when I leave my house, the man who wanders in and goes through my possessions is indeed acting outside the law, but at the same time neither will my insurance company pay to replace the items he takes. Because it is my fault after all.

Morever nobody actually wants to point out the facts behind the ludicrous Milly Dowler hysteria. With the idea that messages were being deleted by journalists now exposed as a lie (I spent the summer of 2011 going around asking if anyone was aware of the concept of automatic expiry to be met with blank looks) and even her mobile network admitting that in the week she went missing they upgraded their voicemail system and wiped EVERYONE’S archived messages we are actually left with a rare example of reporters acting with the very best of intentions.

They were after all trying to assist in locating a missing child, a child whose desperate parents had reached out to the media and invited them to assist in any way possible in locating their daughter. Thus journalists, knowing they had the scoop of the century if they obtained the information which lead to her, used their usual tools to try to turn up clues. Far from impeding the investigation and hiding material, they were open about it, passing onto the police what turned out in the end to be a false lead that she may have signed on with a temping agency a few miles from her home. Note how the Guardian paints a picture of the messages of a dead child being raked over for tittle tattle. Not so, they were the messages of a _missing_ child, and one who nobody knew had sadly already passed away and was beyond rescue, one whose body was only uncovered six months later by the same incompetent police who failed to nail her killer before he struck again because they didn’t call back when he was out during initial house to house searches.

I get greeted with the same looks of horror that result from expressing a belief that Savile is innocent when I point out that the ‘hacking’ of Milly Dowler’s phone whilst technically illegal was also perfectly defensible, a fine bit of journalistic research and one which would have resulted in the perpetrators showered with awards had a positive outcome resulted. The fact that the tragedy of her murder is being used as a smokescreen by those with a sinister agenda to suppress free speech is the biggest insult to her of all. One that the supposedly morally upstanding Guardian are disgracefully complicit in.

Now, about that £2m payout her family got for something that didn’t actually happen…

rabbitawayMarch 19, 2013 at 18:10

@JM yesterday at 23.32Some good comments here – the rags have their uses – remember that great headline in 1997 – ‘MURDERERS’ on top of the pics of the Stephen Lawrence boys ? I quote ‘The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us’. Made me feel quite emotional at the time – still does. There are many fine journalists out there (and in here !). We need more ‘rabid’ journalists with principals to go where others fear to tread.Back to Jimmy – your last paragraph – aye, I too am met with surprise when I state my case to all and sundry that JS is ‘innocent’ for want of a better word. When did ‘we’ all start believing every damn thing we read or see on the news ?

OscarMarch 19, 2013 at 21:01

true but the hacking was a criminal offense and it was organised and continual.To their credit The Guardian apologised correctly and openly when others , including their critics would have probably ignored requests especially as they print damaging tosh every day.

The deletion of messages was obviously the tipping point for the death of the NoTW but I believe it would have gone eventually.What strikes me about all this hacking business is that Rupert Murdoch , despite his fan, is NOT the great newspaper man we are led to believe and his fiercest critics who know him well say he has no interest in newspapers apart from the power they give him.

and does anyone give a toss that the NoTW is no longer with us?

Ho HumMarch 18, 2013 at 23:14

‘the new regulations won’t make much difference to newspapers, but it will silence a lot of bloggers. Cynical? Moi?…’

Cynical? Not at all. From that delightful UK Press Trade Journal, …..you can work it out for yourself from the information below…some time ago. Big issues normally move slowly………..

‘Super-injunction crackdown on Google and Twitter could be good news for journalists

Posted by ……………………………………. on 16 May 2011 at 11:01

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt pledged last week to look at new regulations to cover new media publishers – particularly Twitter – who are making a mockery of UK privacy laws.He had better act fast because unregulated blogs and Twitterers are having a field day with the issue of super-injunctions.

The latest miscreant I’ve seen is Google, via a hugely popular blog which has published a shared Google Doc listing all 80 of the privacy injunctions that we know about and listing many of those who are believed to be behind them. The spreadsheet includes a column amusingly headed “proof” about the provenance of each alleged injunction – which often lists this as “speculation”.

I would argue that by publishing this spreadsheet Google is just as much a publisher as any blog or newspaper website. Incidentally, the blog itself is hosted by Google on its Blogger platform.

Some newspapers say that the widespread flouting of injunctions online is an argument for doing away with them.But surely there will always be a case for prior-restraint on journalism in some cases? Such as in criminal prosecutions for blackmail and to protect vulnerable children.

Shouldn’t the super-injunction furore be viewed as an opportunity to reign in the many blogs, social media websites and others who seek to publish without responsibility?

This could turn out to be an opportunity for the professional journalism industry – an industry which invests a great deal of time and money in ensuring that what it publishes is legal and ethical.

New Government regulation on publishers such as Twitter and Google could enable the real publishing industry to regain ground lost to new media – particularly the many millions of lost advertising income.

Perhaps Twitter and Google need to learn that you can’t do news for free and you can’t let people stick anything they like on your website without accepting the consequences.’

(BTW, a Google search will find a reference to the original article OK, but the link won’t take you back to the original page, nor, seemingly, will a search on the relevant site…if you have the patience to wait long enough. Neither Google cache or the Way Back machine seem to have copies either)

The Press and ‘freedom of speech’? The first real opportunity they have, when someone slips up badly, just watch, they will be coming to reign you in….or maybe they think that, as the quid pro quo, they now have….

As for the quoted ‘legal and ethical’ publishing, please pass the sick bag…

I keep seeing it all over the place just recently.Maybe it’s the spell-checker…. My own doppel -rr is just down to my lousy typing…….

OscarMarch 19, 2013 at 20:53

The Perfect Storm is brewing re: internet libel and so-called freedom of speech because :

1.Google, Facebook, twitter etc are scooping up advertising dollars/pounds in the billions, basing themselves in tax havens and paying miniscule tax.Governments around the world are already working on how to squeeze tax out of them. I believe it will come from the USA first that will impose some sort of regulation about where you base your corporation. They did it with ‘terrorist’ groups that were being funded abroad so it can be done.

2. Gutnick Vs Dow Jones in 2002 established that a publisher can be sued if their defamation is read in another country. Dow Jones tried to claim they had a tiny readership in Australia where Gutnick sued. The court didn’t accept their argument.

3. Next comes the notion of whether platforms like Google/Blogger are publishers rather than the ‘notice board’ the claim to be.

4. Courts in Italy, Spain and now Australia have decided Google & Yahoo are publishers (which means they all are)…the argument used was that although in essence Blogger is a noticeboard, they profit from that board and when alerted that a defamation has been posted on their noticeboard and they fail to take it down, they automatically become a publisher.

5. One litigant has already sued Google /Yahoo twice each- for defamatory posts on a blog hosted by them, and for listing the libel in their search engine and been awarded substantial damages. There are a number of cases pending and Google in Australia eventually remove libels after much prodding. Yahoo whip them down asap. And given the Gutnick /Dow Jones case precedent, it is just a matter of time before US litigants sue in foreign courts.

5. The UK is now considering an appeal against a past ruling that Google was not a publisher.Judges and governments do not like entities more powerful than them. I believe the freewheeling days of anonymous publishing and the freedom to libel.It could have been worse : George Bush Jnr almost succeeded in handing the keys to the net via gateways, to Rupert Murdoch.

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 21:27

I said in one of my other comments that ‘the libel laws are far more dangerous……’.

ivanMarch 18, 2013 at 22:03

It is very rich for the Guardian to shout about ‘hacking’ when they started real hacking into MoD e-mails. The government of the day dis nothing possibly because they were into trying to sell dodgy dossiers to the people. After all ‘every little helps’.

NewmarkMarch 18, 2013 at 21:41

The reported apparent deletion of Milly Dowler’s messages was of secondary importance. Of primary importance was the fact that her mobile phone was hacked by someone acting on behalf of the News of the World. It is true that no-one was convicted of the offence in court. It didn’t need to go to court because the NOW paid the Dowler family £2,000,000 compensation before it got to that stage. Thus the NOW effectively admitted their guilt.

It is almost certain that Milly Dowler never changed the password from the initial default setting, making it very easy for someone to hack into. However, no-one seems to have established where the hacker got hold of her mobile phone number in the first place.

It absolutely was NOT of secondary importance. It was the prime mover. The deletion of messages was alleged to have given the parents the hope she was alive. It was the empathy of the *public* with that contention that then gave hackgate the impetus to become more than just another squabble between journalists and celebrities.

@ However, no-one seems to have established where the hacker got hold of her mobile phone number in the first place. @

As the News of the World was sponsoring the poor parents by then, it was obviously given to them by the parents. This trust-betrayed further played into the ensuing hatred towards News International.

NewmarkMarch 19, 2013 at 11:11

The hacking furore was well under way before Milly Dowler’s family came into the picture. When it was reported that Milly’s messages had been hacked that increased the agitation. It was only later that it came out that her messages had been deleted, with the suggestion that the deletions had been carried out by NOW investigators. The agitation then increased only marginally.

The parents did not give Milly’s mobile phone number to the NOW. The police said that NOW investigators obtained it from her schoolfriends.

Eh?July 4 – Allegations across the media that the girls messages had been deleted by the HacksJuly 7 – News of the World closed down

@ The parents did not give Milly’s mobile phone number to the NOW. The police said that NOW investigators obtained it from her schoolfriends. @

I’ll take your word for it. Perhaps I’m confusing the memory of the parenst being given a phone by the NotW, when the paper started campaigning alongside them.

Ancient + Tattered AirmanMarch 18, 2013 at 20:46

We delude ourselves if we think we live in a ‘free country’ when there is no freedom of speech.What has happened to my country?

Ho HumMarch 19, 2013 at 00:43

There never was. All that has happened is that what the press now tries to pass off as such, is merely the growth in their propensity to shovel shit on anyone and everyone they choose to for the benefit of their own agendas, or to fill their pockets, with no real recourse against them. We all want freedom of speech. Some of us just don’t want their version of it – for more on which, which see my comment below @ 23.14

I was sent this on my news feed :Just so everyone on my friends list knows that I completed this and I am done! Facebook has changed their privacy settings once more!! Due to the new “graph app” anyone on facebook (including other countries ) can see your pictures, likes & comments. The next 2 weeks I will be posting this, and please once you have done it please post DONE!!! Those of you who do not keep my information from going… out to the public, I will have to DELETE YOU! I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post shots of family that I don’t want strangers to have access to! This happens when friends click “like” or “comment”….automatically, their friends would see our posts, too. Unfortunately, we cannot change this setting by ourselves because Faceboook configured it that way. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear,now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “LIFE EVENTS and “COMMENTS & LIKES”. By doing this, my activity among my friends and family will no longer become public. Now, copy & paste this on your wall. Once i see this posted on your page, I will do the same. Thank You

Check snopes for the authenticity of this and other fake messages designed to panic the populace

Peter MacFarlaneMarch 19, 2013 at 22:13

Time to channel Mencken yet again:

…an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”

Yup, nothing much changes.

CascadianMarch 18, 2013 at 19:41

Habeus corpus, innocent until proven guilty, freedom of the press……..all gone, and yet you believe you live in a democracy. Mix in some insolvent nationalized banks and a rapidly declining currency and England is looking like some of the worst African nations. Once you could sneer at Zimbabwe, not any more.

Camoron has just cemented his place in history alongside Harold Wilson and Ted Heath as amongst the worst Prime Ministers.

Democracy as it is applied in most western countries is a joke anyway. It is simply a way for the elite who have ruled over us forever to continue said rule under a very thin veneer of suffrage and call it ‘democracy’.

The fact that all parties have imposed laws on the general population that were not in their manifestos and undertaken military adventures which the UK public made quite clear they did not support has proven this time and again. This is true of Labour, Tories and Lib Dems, none of them are free of guilt on this matter.

The representative democratic model has failed and continues to fail, quite simply because the elected politicians are only ever elected by a small minority of the population and even then their views reflect the party that nominated them 99% of the time rather than the electorate that elected them.

Far better to move to the Swiss-style direct democracy with the government only having a limited scope for action independent of the electorate.

Ted TreenMarch 19, 2013 at 12:45

You never have, here in the UK.

Democracy is a superb idea, and I’m all for it – however I fear the establishment would never permit it.

As an information technology professional for many years I have always tried to tell people that the internet is no different to the real world, SAME RULES APPLY.Thus it is important to phrase things very carefully when we wish to imply that their might be grounds to suspect jiggery pokery has been involved in something.What has saved a lot of bloggers is the authorities did not know how to enforce the laws rather than the once popular belief that ‘the internet is the last bastion of free speech.’Free speech never meant we could say anything we liked about anyone or on any topic.The phone hacking scandal, as you say Anna, was never about hacking but about the inadequacy of the technology when it is used by people who do not understand it. SAFE should always be the default. Same with PC hacking, it would cost makers pennies per unit to make them safe by only allowing directly attached devices (keyboard and mouse) to address system files. But that would take away Microsoft’s control of our machines.

alanMarch 19, 2013 at 00:10

I can see what your saying to a degree, fraud on the internet is no different to fraud in the real world. However you fail to appreciate that the internet is very different to the real world.

For example. In a real world pub I don’t have a court recorder sitting on my shoulder recording everything that I say & do. Another difference is the real world has borders, the internet has none. A great example is the “We [heart] You” that went viral last year. Citizens of Israel & Iran sharing their common desire for peace & love; an event that would never occurred using real world rules.

The Internet has brought about a paradigm shift in how humans communicate. Old world rules imposed on the internet, specifically speech laws, work against the betterment of humanity and only enable tyranny. May I suggest reading up on Internet philosophy. The works by David Brin, Richard Thieme are a good starting point.

And on the second point of security; there is no security. Everything can be hacked. Yes the media pin-code hacks were really dumb and easily prevented. But hacking techniques evolve faster than they can be stopped. Future hacks will use other methods, example targeted phishing attacks dropping a rootkit, or fake mobile phone repeater stations, or just old school social engineering attacks. Go to defcon, or watch the presentations on youtube.

But surely, if no one is printing lies and distortions then there won’t be a problem.

rabbitawayMarch 18, 2013 at 19:47

So – here is my summary of what I think this crap is all about !Months before the lads in Scarborough had even started chipping away at that large piece of black granite – the nation was subjected to the truly awful, terrible news that some journalists are low life rats who will go to almost any lengths to get information on anyone for the sole purpose of selling their rubbish rag. Then came the arrests – the show trials aka Leveson and the sacrificial lamb that was shutdown of the screws of the world. All I could think at the time was, SO WHAT …is this not what people buy these sorry rags for ?Fast forward a bit to the ‘outing’ of the BBC as a so called 1960′s training camp for nonces last year (about a month after old Jimmy’s stone had finally gone up at a cost of £4000 inc spelling mistake). Much ado about nothing ! A televison program that should not have been made – and wasn’t (Newshite). Details about said, not made program leaked to the other side leading to another televison program that should not have been made, made and aired in October ! The rest is history – well for now that is cos whether ‘they’ like it or not those who have conspired in this con trick will be exposed for what they are and any law twisted to protect the guilty will not be law for long.

@ But surely, if no one is printing lies and distortions then there won’t be a problem. @

Absolutely right Elena!If Bloggers write rationally and tell the truth, all would be well………I assume you don’t read that many blogs however if you consider that to be the general case…..

The Raccon Arms is one island of sanity in a tide of filth…………. There are others, but you have to be a bloody strong swimmer to reach them sometimes……..At the moment our mainstream Press seems to be being run by the blogosphere.

The very word ‘hacked’ was a misnomer, there was no computing alchemy; merely a journalist discovering a new source of information – no different to learning how to navigate Facebook and download that teenage photograph of a youthfull politician throwing up into a policeman’s hat.

It is different. First, of course, unauthorised remote access to voicemail systems is a criminal offence while dropping in on someone’s public Facebook page is not. A big ethical difference is also implicit to your analogy: to gain access to someone’s voicemails you need a key; to gain access to their unprotected Facebook page you have to glance through the open door.

Yep, plenty of arrests, but not one case proven in court so far.

Mulcaire and Goodman pled guilty five years ago. The cases exposed in 2007 were surely part of the same phenomenon as those of 2012.

I agree that only one is criminally wrong – but they are equally wrong in ethical terms I think. I should have made myself clearer on that point – ben a bit busy today…..

Peter MacFarlaneMarch 19, 2013 at 22:09

“to gain access to someone’s voicemails you need a key”

Only if the target has set a key.

Many people don’t, and most younger people don’t see the point and don’t care even in the slightest about security and privacy – until they themselves get burned.

Most the voicemails that were “hacked” were in all likeliehood not protected in any way – all you needed to know to get access was the mobile number.

Dai BrainbocsMarch 18, 2013 at 17:02

I think it’s stretching a point much too far to compare someone failing to protect their privacy when putting a photo on Facebook because of ignorance of the settings – they plainly intend multiple people to view it, however ill-advised that might be – with failing to protect individual, personal voicemail out of ignorance of its privacy settings.

Its also interesting that faceache (facebook) is about to change format so that your timeline can be seen by everybody, as such will fall foul of this garbage.If it comes to it I will be back handing out leaflets

Joe PublicMarch 18, 2013 at 16:58

It’s ironic that probably 90% of this Parliament’s “newbies” owe their job to the fact that the previous arse sat in their seat was outed via the expenses scandal.

“Publisher” means a person (other than a broadcaster) who publishes in the United Kingdom: a) a newspaper or magazine containing news-related material, or b) a website containing news-related material (whether or not related to a newspaper or magazine)”

The best decision I ever made was to be hosted in the US – costs me, instead of a free blog, but worth every penny for peace of mind.

That is not to say that action could not be taken against me, were I to set foot in the UK, since UK libel law applies to anything which could be read in the UK….

What I think is more likely to happen is that Free blog sites and other social media will refuse to carry anything that could be contentious.

mewsicalMarch 18, 2013 at 17:11

I agree Dai. It’s either incredibly naive or simply disingenuous to post a photo or a writing just about anywhere on the internet these days, with the expectation that it won’t be seen by a number of people, if they’re that interested. Voice mail is a whole other issue.